"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."
Edmund Burke. What happened on this Day in History?

Thursday, December 18, 2014

This Day in WWII History: Dec 18, 1941: Japan invades Hong Kong

On this day, Japanese troops
land in Hong Kong and a slaughter ensues.

A week of air raids over Hong
Kong, a British crown colony, was followed up on December 17 with a visit paid
by Japanese envoys to Sir Mark Young, the British governor of Hong Kong. The
envoys' message was simple: The British garrison there should simply surrender
to the Japanese—resistance was futile. The envoys were sent home with the
following retort: "The governor and commander in chief of Hong Kong declines
absolutely to enter into negotiations for the surrender of Hong Kong..."

The first wave of Japanese
troops landed in Hong Kong with artillery fire for cover and the following
order from their commander: "Take no prisoners." Upon overrunning a
volunteer antiaircraft battery, the Japanese invaders roped together the
captured soldiers and proceeded to bayonet them to death. Even those who
offered no resistance, such as the Royal Medical Corps, were led up a hill and
killed.

The Japanese quickly took
control of key reservoirs, threatening the British and Chinese inhabitants with
a slow death by thirst. The Brits finally surrendered control of Hong Kong on Christmas Day.

The War Powers Act was passed
by Congress on the same day, authorizing the president to initiate and
terminate defense contracts, reconfigure government agencies for wartime
priorities, and regulate the freezing of foreign assets. It also permitted him
to censor all communications coming in and leaving the country.

FDR appointed the executive
news director of the Associated Press, Byron Price, as director of censorship.
Although invested with the awesome power to restrict and withhold news, Price
took no extreme measures, allowing news outlets and radio stations to
self-censor, which they did. Most top secret information, including the
construction of the atom bomb, remained just that.

The most extreme use of the
censorship law seems to have been the restriction of the free flow of
"girlie" magazines to servicemen—including Esquire, which the
Post Office considered obscene for its occasional saucy cartoons and pinups. Esquire
took the Post Office to court, and after three years the Supreme Court
ultimately sided with the magazine.